After paying their dues, should hobbyists who committed fraud be allowed back ?

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I don't know. I know that driving 56 is not dangerous but 120 is. But damned if I know where I would draw the line in between. I guess saying, it depends, doesn't really help because it's still a line drawing problem its just adding variables. (E.g., it might be safe for Lewis Hamilton to drive 100 down Colorado Boulevard, but not me.)

The problem is that we must have a line, because we are relying on said line to even define what this crime you and Snowman are advocating even is.

For example, "speeding" is a thing most people consider to be wrong. It describes going 56 in a 55, or 120, or 200 or 1,500 if that was practically possible. 54 is fine, 50 is fine. Not everyone will draw the line in the exact same place, it is arbitrary, but generally understood and accepted. Even with a population of almost 100% speeders, the vast majority support the notion that speeding is wrong and that those doing so deserve some sort of punishment in the legal system, which is separate from morality.

You have said "getting a bargain" is the wrong and inaccurate term, even though that's quite literally exactly what buying a card a seller of their own free will offers for $50 when it is worth $1,000,000 is. So what one is doing is not the crime, it is a crime only at a certain point. But we cannot define what that point is at all. We cannot say if I am or am not a hobby criminal for the moral crime, which we can't define, of which I may or may not be guilty of because we cannot define it.

It leaves me with no definition or understanding of what this alleged moral crime even is. The general descriptor of what is happening, what we normally use for such things, is rejected, for an argument of degrees, that this bargain is fine but this bargain is not because it's too much of a bargain, but the degrees also cannot be stated. To be a wrong or a crime, I would think we would have to first be able to define what it even is, following the Socratic principle, which it seems cannot be done.

I still have no idea how this vague and indefinable 'crime' can be worse than Mastro's actual crimes and wrongs that do not rely on a new standard.